Labor has enjoyed an unlikely sounding spike in the latest Morgan poll, to 61-39 from 57-43 a fortnight ago, for which the most likely explanation is that the previous one was a rogue. Its primary vote is up 4.5 per cent to 53 per cent while the Coalition is down 5.5 per cent to 33.5 per cent. The Greens are up two points to 8 per cent. Furthermore:
• The Victorian Nationals have endorsed Bridget McKenzie, a university lecturer and former school teacher from Leongatha, for the safe number two position on the Coalition Senate ticket at the next election. McKenzie fills the position held at the 2004 election by Julian McGauran, who subsequently defected to the Liberals and will now be the number three candidate on the Coalition ticket, with Michael Ronaldson at number one.
• Andrew Landeryou at VexNews reports that industrial relations lawyer John Pesutto has emerged as another challenger to Josh Frydenberg’s bid to succeed Petro Georgiou as Liberal member for Kooyong.
• Imre Salusinszky of The Australian notes that beef stroganoff enthusiast John Murphy would almost certainly lose his seat of Lowe in the event that an early election required a “mini-redistribution” to reduce New South Wales to its required number of seats.
• The Australian Parliamentary Library has published a paper mapping poverty rates by federal electorate.
vera
[OK you lot stop writing Malcolms script for him 😉 he was on the news calling Rudd Dr Jeckle and Mr Hyde. Now someone here last week said that’s what he’d say next lol.]
I said that on Saturday but I predicted it would happen before the weekend ended, so I lose. 🙁
Looks like the Lib tactic of whipping up hysteria about China was a bad move. The Essential report has 65% wanting our relationship to get closer or stay the same while only 22% want to get less close
hmm 22% could this be the low watermark for the Coalition’s 2PP?
ALP 78 Libs 22 😉 I’d like to see that
Vera
thank goodness Turnbull hasn’t stolen my suggestion to blame problems in the AFL on Rudd and his Queensland-centric league bias!
Adam 840 ROTFL 😀
I could hardly disagree, Adam, although she is prone to be a little fulsome in her praise.
Adam:
OK, who here thinks that what their wife/spouse/partner says has no truth whatever in it?
My wife certainly knows everything, Adam. I don’t know if you’re familiar with the t-shirt emblazoned with the words;
Encyclopedia for sale, wife knows everything.
If I was in the habit of wearing such opinions – as distinct from Kevin 07 and the like – that would be mine. As it is, I tend to wear clothes for a long time, and then even the best jokes lose their impact.
Thanks Adam for the link to the Axis History Forum
The Alternate History Forum (http://www.alternatehistory.com/discussion ) is going well too – “WI Lenin born female?” is getting some hilarious responses at the moment
I argued with my wife over a couple of issues for years until I realized she was right.
StimPac III will come out on 3 June, the most holy day of the calendar.
http://www.lionden.com/st.htm
Did anybody in the Liberals analyze their election defeat and find out what turned the public off to them?
The most obvious thing to all during that election was Rudd being totally positive and avoiding the negative style that was typical or Howard and of that era. See likewise with Obama. AND it has been reinforced since Labor has been in. Negative politics seems to have little bite now days, and especially if you are not in government.
The delightful Mrs. Diog is always RIGHT and the horrible Mr. Diog is always wRONg.
Offering “fulsome praise” is fast becoming one of those key phrases of impending demise.
E.g. I am behind the leader. Or the (insert team) coach has my full support.
Whenever they utterred you get the feeling that the recipient is for the high jump!
my hubby knows this is the truth
[It doesn’t matter how often a married man changes his job, he still ends Up with the same boss.]
Adam,
St Kevin may announce it on that day. But, a real politician would implement it during the Festival of the Hoof.
Oh, I’m for the highjump allright, GG. When she says jump, I say how high!
[Short-selling is the practice of borrowing stock and selling it in the hope that its price declines. If it does drop, then the seller profits by buying it back at the lower price and returning the borrowed shares. ]
[On Wednesday, the Securities and Exchange Commission plans to announce several proposals to permanently restrict traders from making bets that stock prices will decline when those prices are already dropping.]
[Some companies and Wall Street executives have blamed short-selling for needlessly accelerating declines in stock prices and contributing to the demise of companies like Bear Stearns and Lehman Brothers.]
[Other market players disagree. They say short-sellers are the market’s whistle-blowers, and their stock trades and skeptical analyses of corporate balance sheets are essential to the efficient functioning of the markets. Many large investors also use short-selling techniques as a hedge to protect them against losses in declining markets.]
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/06/business/06short.html?hpw
Isn’t short selling just manipulating the market to make a quick quid sitting at your computer. Is there any real justification for it?
I think a new online cult of St Kevin is in order.
How can you sell something you don’t own?
[No Follow
No Index
In their robots.txt file.
Bet they won’t]
yep because that would = No ad revenue.
[How can you sell something you don’t own?]
You rent it. You sell it. You buy it back at a lower price. You pay the renter interest and give it back to him.
Who do you think wins in this dealing?
[How can you sell something you don’t own?]
Of course – get thee to the futures market.
I recall back in the early 90s when I was doing 2nd year economics and one of the subjects was international finance. It was all about options, derivatives etc. It was all rather interesting would be more so if I could remember any of it!
You borrow it, sell it, and hope you can buy it cheaper late. The stock market has one big problem, only a small percentage of the stock is traded, most is held by long term investors. If a large block is lent the borrower can force the market down to a point where there is panic selling, oh say by a director who has a margin call.
Amigo Vera, is this also true?
[It doesn’t matter how often a man changes wife, he still ends Up with the same woman]
Even worse, all his wives end up with the same man. (Or so it seems logical to conclude.)
These results reflect the success of the education revolution and are further proof of this government’s all round competence and Mr Rudd’s charming persona.
Yes Finns that would be so, the man who changes his wife many times spends his life chasing his tail.
Adam
I’m reading about the People’s Temple and the Jonestown Massacre. Jim Jones started out as a great Leader and had huge approval ratings like Rudd. He had a bit more trouble handling the adulation and kind of lost touch with reality. I think the Ruddster could start a “balanced” cult.
Finns
Mrs Diog says you are a very perceptive man.
On the encryption thing, I read that there was something called RSA public-key cryptography which created an asymmetrical key. It was based on multiples of huge prime numbers which were 100 digits long. The software using this encryption, PGP, was unbreakable as no supercomputer could calculate primes that long to undo the key. This meant that criminals could encrypt messages on the internet which the NSA could not read, which upset them greatly. They wanted it banned.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RSA
uh-oh now it’s Rosegate! 😀
[Celebrity gardener Peter Cundall said he told Prime Minister Kevin Rudd his roses were a “disgrace”.
“Where are your tomatoes and your carrots and your potatoes?” Mr Cundall asked the PM and his wife. “Where’s your veggie patch?”]
http://www.psnews.com.au/Page_psn16312.html
They’ll have invite the Obamas over so Michelle can give a few gardening tips.
Who is the polly pretty boy or girl when comes to salary? Obi? who has the most powerful and toughest job in the World. No it’s the PM of the puny Singapore. It must be hard managing an island/city state nation as big as a pin head. Poor St. Kevin, just as well St. Theresa is loaded.
1. Lee Hsien Loong (Singapore)
Salary in dollars – $2.47 million
Salary in local currency – S$3.76 million
2. Donald Tsang Yum-Kuen (Hong Kong)
Salary in dollars – $516,000
Salary in local currency – HK$4 million
3. Barack Obama (United States)
Salary in dollars – $400,000
4. Brian Cowen (Ireland)
Salary in dollars – $341,000
Salary in local currency – €257,000
5. Nicolas Sarkozy (France)
Salary in dollars – $318,000
Salary in local currency – €240,000
6. Angela Merkel (Germany)
Salary in dollars – $303,000
Salary in local currency – €228,000
7. Gordon Brown (UK)
Salary in dollars – $279,000
Salary in local currency – £194,250
8. Stephen Harper (Canada)
Salary in dollars – $246,000
Salary in local currency – C$311,000
9. Taro Aso (Japan)
Salary in dollars – $243,000
Salary in local currency – Y24 million
10. Kevin Rudd (Australia)
Salary in dollars – $229,000
Salary in local currency – A$330,000
Good to see that we concentrating on the big issues Vera.
[Conspiracy theory 2:
certain fed Gvt depts ,among them the defend and protect category, have access to sites such as PB blocked cos they contain “prohibited content”. I am not sure of ALL gvt depts but have had confrimed 3 so far.
No doubt the intelligence collecting agencies have the tightest policy of all, it is best to keep those sort of people in the dark.]
Mate I know confirms this about PB, but says funny enough still can access pies and dolts sites, go figure!
Nothing sinister in it tho, private co I worked for asked for radios to be removed from delivery vans as felt workers should not be enjoying themselves on the job. Mate also said same done in depts and reckons there must be a warehouse somewhere full of car radios removed from the vehicles.
[Poor St. Kevin]
Fins
What about the pension/ super schemes, ours is very generous.
Also includes free food, rent wine, other allowances etc?
Castle, can you imagine St. Theresa also run the Future Fund? The wife of Singapore PM was running Temasek Investment (Sing Govt investment fund). She had to resign 2 months ago because the fund lost 30%, including investment of $235M in ABC Learning.
The Fins – you obviously missed The Oz manipulating of the salaries. They figured Kev coming in 10th didn’t accord with their narrative, so they said the best way to calculate it was salary per head of population.
That meant Kev came in 4th highest.
Of course they didn’t extrapolate furhter and sugest Kev should be paid at the same “rate” as Obama – 0.1c per head or around $21,000 a year…
A new high for journalism in this country:
http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/business/story/0,28124,25278168-5018055,00.html
[Kev should be paid at the same “rate” as Obama – 0.1c per head or around $21,000 a year…]
Grog, so St. Kevin will also qualify to receive the $900 bonus?
TP, there are 10 best words that someone can say in a relationship. 3 of those are “I love you”. 🙂
The other 7 are the words you DON’T say that save you from the doghouse 😀
[Mate I know confirms this about PB, but says funny enough still can access pies and dolts sites, go figure!]
Hmmm
My understanding is this only happened this week, at last count the number was 5 Dpts
The fact that pies and andrewstein are available adds to the intrigue.
So I put 1 cent towards the PM’s salary, not much change of direct influence is there.
#885
Are these the ten words…….”here are the nurofen so now what is your excuse?”
Is it just PB that is blocked or crikey
[Grog, so St. Kevin will also qualify to receive the $900 bonus?]
At least I’m sure he’d spend it all!
[Nothing sinister in it tho]
Nup – I know a guy whose Dept has blocked imdb and yet Crikey is fine. ALl depends on the firewall thingy (yet I’m a real techie) – some places block anyhting that has videos etc (thought usually news.com etc are ok).
I wouldn’t break out the tinfoil just yet.
They had a lady on triple J who was an expert on North Korea. She said the propaganda was so bad when she was last there that the media was reporting that the US was in a famine due to the rice harvest failing. 😛
[Are these the ten words…….”here are the nurofen so now what is your excuse?”]
Red
true story, I had to address a sales convention on the “12 most important words”
So ,In my best business voice I began:
“do you…… ”
needless to say it involved first dates and breweries
I was never asked to give a speech after that
🙁
Geez Diog – it’s we are at war with Ocenaia, we have always been at war with Oceania stuff isn’t it.
[needless to say it involved first dates and breweries]
err was Kevin Bloody Wilson involved? 😀
Adam,
The penalty for bigamy is two mothers in law.
The penalty for trigomy is thinking you’ve got all the angles covered.
There was a old fellow of Lyme,
Who lived with three wives at one time.
When asked: “Why the third?”
He replied: “One’s absurd,
And bigamy, sir, is a crime.”
[err was Kevin Bloody Wilson involved? ]
No, but lots of Dom and partying beforehand
BTW the KBW thing I first heard about 6 mths later.
NBN could be announced tomorrow:
[The source is adamant that going alone has been considered: “The Government could build out the project over five years and then have an asset it would sell into the market space. Labor people would love it. ‘We’re going back into telcos,’ they’d say. Voters wouldn’t mind, either. Telstra’s not exactly the flavour of the month out there.”]
http://www.australianit.news.com.au/story/0,25197,25295324-15306,00.html
Perhaps under Obama, truth isn’t the first casualty of war…
[For the first time since an 18-year ban on news coverage of returning war dead was lifted, the media witnessed the arrival Sunday night of a soldier killed overseas.]
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/04/05/media-allowed-to-witness-_n_183346.html